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Yes, Even Circus Freaks Have A Lobby

Mark Williams, Radio 810-WGY, 3:10-3:30 PM, December 10 1996
I got this like five page e-mail from someone who called me every human rights abuser name in the book, including a facist, for me thinking it's funny that some guy who wants his hoo-haa whacked off is suing to use the ladies room. They didn't even hear the show, they heard about it third hand! Wow! Even circus freaks have a lobby!
They say that it's bad that therapists think they need to be diagnosed as ill because they want to get their hoo-haa lopped off. Yeah right, like they are not sick! Equal rights for circus freaks!
I looked up this thing on the internet, and there are like 3000 entry points on transgender, and more beyond that! So much for these freaks!
A couple just got fined $500 each for for having oral sex in a Dennys. In NYS, it's a human right to breast feed, the only state in the country. If a woman can get her breast suckled in public, then why can't a man get sucked in public? Where are the men's rights advocates when we need them?
We have normal people in a Denny's doing what comes naturally and they get fined, and the Circus Freaks sue to use the toilet! It's crazy!
And besides, nobody has told me yet -- is there an organ bank for hoo-haas?

Today, Mark Williams seemed stunned that someone wrote him to decry yesterdays uninformed rant against the transgendered person who claims to have been beaten after using the public restroom at the Albany Public Library. Mr. Williams did not focus on the allegations of physical abuse, intimating only that the issue was about access to public facilities.

In his words, Williams was surprised that “Even Circus Freaks Have A Lobby!”

If Mr. Williams would stop to think for a moment, rather than using the organ that he feels is appropriate to have suckled in public (as he announced today), he would understand that if anyone needs a lobby, it is those humans that some paint as circus freaks.

Do Circus Freaks deserve human rights? Only if they are human. And too often we forget that people who are not normal are just human too, whatever their “freakishness.” Too tall, too short, impervious to pain, born intersexed, born transgendered, skin problems, those with stunted limbs, and so on — all the mainstay of the freak show at the carnival, and, surprise of surprises, all simply human.

It is when people decide to name call, rant with indignation at the requests of some to have access to public facilities, chortle with incredulity at the needs and demands of some, that people start forgetting that we are all just humans after all.

Williams took shots at the Americans With Disabilities Act, at mental deviants and more in his quest to be “irreverent” and humorous, stirring up his audience with a good old screed. The line between irreverence and disrespect is one that may be fuzzy, but when you start categorizing people as less than human, as mere circus freaks, that line is crossed.

That’s why circus freaks need a lobby. We have to stand up for our
humanity.

Does Williams think we circus freaks don’t have the mental capacity to stand up for ourselves, that just because we might want to have our hoo-haa removed, our brains — obviously disordered to him — cannot actually think? That we cannot counter his arguments of exclusion and derision?

Or does Williams think that anyone so deviant as a circus freak should be ashamed to stand up for their right to be treated with the dignity and respect any human is entitled to?

If the basic foundations of all being created equal do not include circus freaks, then you can be assured that circus freaks will stand up for their rights. And because circus freaks are bright and proud of who they are, they will not hide for his comfort.

It is the circus freaks who need a lobby, to get out the message that Williams obviously doesn’t get — we are all simply humans. The Constitution does not allow discrimination against classes of people — even circus freaks.

Of course, everyone should be held accountable for their actions. Lewd, abusive or predatory behavior is wrong, and people must be held accountable for that. However, simply showing something that would be appropriate on one person (e.g. someone born female) and deciding it is inappropriate on another (someone born male) is violating freedom of expression — a key freedom for anyone in the media.

For if circus freaks are oppressed, then even the carnival barkers outside the freak show, gathering crowds who may buy the products of advertisers, can be oppressed.

The circus freaks are angry because someone is speaking loudly saying that they are less than human, don’t deserve consideration and respect. Someone ignores the allegations of physical abuse and focuses on hoo-haa jokes.

Yes, the circus freaks have a lobby. And until people understand and
speak up for the humanity of all, no matter how freakish, we will
apparently need one.

Callan

(To answer his “big” question, in Genital Reassignment Surgery, the penis is used to create the neo-vagina, so I am sorry to tell him that there is no organ bank of “hoo-haa” availible for him to select a new one. And NYS does not now pay for SRS under Medicare, leaving more TS women without surgery to use the women’s room.)